April 12, 2016 | Morning Headlines
Federal MPs: The Agreement With Puntland Is Unconstitutional
11 April – Source: Goobjoog News – 214 Words
Somali Federal MP Yusuf Mohammad Ali has lashed out at Federal Government over the agreement it signed with Puntland state on the electoral model for 2016. Yusuf termed the agreement ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘unfair’.
The criticism comes days after Somali Federal government reached an agreement with Puntland state, which addressed the dispute over the August electoral model: “All points of agreement are against the constitution; it’s unacceptable and unrealistic and as the guardians of the constitution we will not accept this agreement,” vowed Yusuf. He warned that Federal parliament will in no way accept the agreement noting that the Federal parliament sees all the 18 articles of the agreement as unconstitutional and will therefore not adopt them.
Abdirashid Abdullahi Mohammed, another Federal MP, accused Somali Prime minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke of failing to respect the constitution and leaning towards Puntland : “As we know, the Premier should be the Prime Minister of all, but favouritism for his clan is now clear,” said Mohamed. The Federal Government and Puntland last week signed an agreement which paved way for the 4.5 electoral model for the election of the Lower House members. Puntland had initially rejected the option sticking with the district based model, which proposed the use of the 1991 districts as basis for electing members of the Lower House.
Key Headlines
- Federal MPs: The Agreement With Puntland Is Unconstitutional (Goobjoog News)
- Car bomb Kills Five At Restaurant In Mogadishu (Hiiraan Online)
- Final Session Of Somalia Parliament Open (Horseed Media)
- Phone Network Back In Hobyo After Two Days In Blackout (Goobjoog News)
- Al-Shabaab Claims Car Bomb Attack In Somali Capital (World Magazine)
- UN Agencies Step Up Joint Response To Help Drought-affected Northern Somalia (UN News Center)
- How A Journalist Helped Al-Shabaab Kill Other Reporters (Yahoo News)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Car bomb Kills Five At Restaurant In Mogadishu
11 April – Source: Hiiraan Online – 119 Words
A car bomb blast outside a restaurant in the Somali capital killed at least five people on Monday, police said. Somali capital has witnessed a surge in bombings over the last few months. The attacks claimed by Al Shabaab militants highlight challenges facing efforts by the government in securing the seaside city. The explosion occurred after a car bomb blew up directly in front of a restaurant in Hamarweyne district.The blasts also left a further seven people injured, police and medical sources said.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is on record saying that the Islamist group was resurgent few years after the group lost most of its key strongholds including the capital Mogadishu.
Final Session Of Somalia Parliament Opens
11 April – Source: Horseed Media – 201 Words
Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud opened the 8th session of the 9th Parliament on Monday – the last session of the current Parliament before the elections later on this year. During his opening remarks, President Mohamoud praised Members of the Parliament for executing their duties under immense challenges during their four –year tenure.
The President elaborated on what his government has achieved since coming to power in 2012, citing the recent Somalia-IMF agreement as one of the major triumphs.On the other hand, President Mohamoud admitted his government failed to uphold the one-man-one vote electoral principle across the country, which was one of the pledges he made after taking the oath of office. He added that his government was committed to holding credible elections.
Federal Parliament Speaker Mohamed Osman Jawari said on his part that the Parliament was ready to fulfill its responsibilities towards the remaining tasks ahead of it. Mr Jawari regretted that 15 members died over the last four years, most of them assassinated by the militant Al-Shabaab group.The current Parliament, which was formed in August 2012, has been widely criticized by many for not executing its mandate and for fuelling a political crisis in the country.
Phone Network Back In Hobyo After Two Days In Blackout
11 April – Source: Goobjoog News – 273 Words
Telecommunication companies in Gara’ad town have resumed their operations after two days of offline communication in several areas under Hobyo town. Hobyo District Commissioner Abdullahi Mohamed Ali has dismissed reports claiming the town fell under the control of Al-Shabaab fighters.
“The security of the town is well and the town is under the control of our troops. No single Al-Shabaab member is in the town” said Ali. Officials from the two main telecommunication companies in the town, Hortel Inc and Nationlink Telecom, have yet comment on the issue. Independent reports suggest that since Saturday, communication lines of several areas in the town were cuff off. Somalia’s telecommunication companies have stop providing internet through mobile handsets following last year’s directive by Al-Shabaab militants banning internet
In an announcement on 9th January 2014 broadcast through a radio station affiliated with the group and in a statement later released to local media, Al-Shabaab said telecommunication companies had 15 days to comply with the order: “Any individual or company that is found not following the order will be considered to be working with the enemy and they will be dealt with in accordance with Sharia law.” the statement said.
Mobile internet (3G) was introduced to Somalia 2013 and has proved popular. Fibre optics arrived in Mogadishu in November 2013 and homes have been connected to it filling the gap left by the internet access through mobile handsets. An estimated 10 million population is connected. Most of those who access the internet in Somalia do so through the many internet cafes that dot the country’s big cities and towns. The ban, Al-Shabaab said, does not affect the cafes.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Al-Shabaab Claims Car Bomb Attack In Somali Capital
11 April – Source: World Magazine – 347 Words
Al-Shabaab has taken responsibility for a car bomb explosion in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, that killed at least five people earlier today. The attack took place shortly after Somali authorities executed a journalist with ties to the extremist group.“It was a sad incident,” said Abidqadir Mohammed, the district’s commissioner.
The car bomb detonated during lunchtime, outside a packed restaurant behind the municipal government headquarters in the Hamarwenye district.The local al-Qaeda affiliate has carried out a string of deadly attacks in Mogadishu on targets ranging from government officials to civilians in restaurants and hotels.“Now, their attacks are random regardless of whether it’s in a public place or a government institution,” said Abdillahi Hassan, a local tailor who witnessed the attack.
The terror group’s influence has also spread across the region. Kenya has seen bouts of attacks from Al-Shabaab since it began sending troops to hamper the group’s influence in Somalia.“They have been more willing to attack civilians,” said Stig Jarle Hansen, author of Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group. “When they take responsibility for something, it’s almost always Shabaab who does it.”
UN Agencies Step Up Joint Response To Help Drought-affected Northern Somalia
11 April – Source: UN News Centre – 578 Words
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) are intensifying joint efforts to assist communities in northern Somalia coping with a severe drought exacerbated by El Niño conditions.
The two agencies are providing an integrated package of life-saving humanitarian assistance to halt the deteriorating food security and rising malnutrition in the affected areas of Somaliland and Puntland, where 385,000 need immediate assistance, while another 1.3 million are on the brink of slipping into a deeper crisis if rains continue to fail and aid is too slow to come.The aid package includes food assistance, nutrition programmes, and health services, as well as support to help communities access safe water and improve sanitation and hygiene conditions.
“The communities have lived through four successive poor rainy seasons, and their ability to cope with the drought has been stretched to the limit,” said UNICEF Representative for Somalia, Steven Lauwerier. “Our concerted efforts are needed now to save the lives of tens of thousands of children and their families. Any delay from the international community will put their lives further at risk of hunger and disease,” he added
In addition to increased malnutrition cases and enrolment in nutrition programmes in the most affected areas, malnutrition-related deaths have been reported in areas such as Awdal region bordering Ethiopia. In response, UNICEF is strengthening services at community level, deploying joint mobile health and nutrition teams to reach pastoral and other hard-to-reach groups. Malnourished children will receive an essential package of primary health care interventions, including emergency immunization. UNICEF is also providing 50,000 households with access to safe water via vouchers in the affected areas, and have repaired seven boreholes.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Hanafi kept track of journalists who insulted Al-Shabab or published work he considered to be pro-government. He would then allegedly lure them into meetings and either execute them himself or order someone else to do it, according to Somali prosecutors. The journalists were either shot or blown up by explosives planted in their vehicle,”
How A Journalist Helped Al-Shabaab Kill Other Reporters
11 April – Source:Yahoo News – 409 Words
Since 2007, more than 25 journalists have been killed in Somalia, arguably one of the world’s most dangerous and failed states.At least five of those murders were allegedly plotted single-handedly by Hassan Hanafi, a former radio broadcaster turned Al-Shabaab sympathizer who made it his mission to decimate Somalia’s journalist population between 2007 and 2011.
He was captured in neighboring Kenya in 2014, and confessed to the murders on Somali state television this year. Hasan Ali, chairman of the Somali military court, told reporters in March that Hanafi would “be put to death as soon as possible.”
On Monday, like multiple of his victims who were shot and killed at close range, the former journalist was executed by firing squad in Mogadishu.A native of Somalia’s south-central Hiran region, Hanafi was the perfect liaison between the Al-Shabaab terrorist group and Mogadishu’s journalist community because he himself was once a respected reporter. He first reported for the capital’s Quran FM radio station in 2003 before moving to a mainstream Somali website in 2006.
His allegiance to Al-Shabaab went public after he continuously broke news about the group and eventually split off to join its propaganda station, Radio Andalus. There, he served as a mouthpiece for the extremist group that has spent years trying to overthrow the country’s central government and killing thousands of people along the way.